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After three compelling short-track races in the last four weeks, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to the longest oval on the circuit, the mammoth 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway, site of Sunday’s GEICO 500. Talladega is one of two restrictor-plate tracks on the NASCAR circuit — Daytona International Speedway is the other — and believe it or not, some of the sport’s best drivers have never won at either track. Here…

Olympian Michael Phelps opened up about what he calls a “downward spiral” on Wednesday morning in an interview with the Today Show‘s Matt Lauer. Phelps, who is preparing for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, said he struggled in the wake of his sweeping Olympic victories in 2008. By the time the 2012 games came around, he said, he did not want to compete. “Leading into London, I didn’t want anything…

Andre Ethier(Photo: Russell Gates/The Republic) Phoenix St. Mary’s has never won a state baseball championship in its long storied athletic history, but it has produced its share of players who not only got to the big leagues, but made an impact. Jim Sanford, part of St. Mary’s athletics for the better part of 60 years, from his elementary school days to high school playing days to head baseball coaching days for much…

9:25 AM ET print He leads the league in homers. He leads the league in stop-what-you’re-doing-and-turn-on-SportsCenter moments. And, of course, he leads the league in hair. But in other news, Bryce Harper has a war to fight. The culture war. He might not look the part. But baseball’s most magnetic player is the Gen. George S. Patton of the baseball culture war. He sees what the men around him don’t….

Brendan Lowery of Randolph collects used baseball equipment for donation.(Photo: Courtesy of Chris Lowery) Most of the time, Brendan Lowery is a sophomore infielder on the Randolph baseball team. Lowery is busy with his Rams teammates preparing to face Morristown-Beard in the second round of the Morris County Tournament on Saturday. But in their spare time, Brendan and his father, Chris Lowery, help underprivileged baseball players in the Dominican Republic…

In an attempt to gin up support in basketball-mad Indiana on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz tried to compare his candidacy to the underdogs in the movie “Hoosiers.” It was a strained comparison. But by somehow referring to the hoop as a “basketball ring,” Cruz instead showed that he perhaps has never actually seen “Hoosiers,” or a basketball game or maybe even a basketball. [Ted Cruz invokes “Hoosiers,” fails…

When do “mean tweets” cross the line from harmless to flat-out harassment? Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you can’t look the recipient in the eye while reading your clever insults, it’s probably not OK. A group of well-meaning men got a firsthand look at the bizarre torrents of online abuse faced by female sports journalists when they were asked to read real tweets the women had received. The…

Athletics How are they shaping up? Mo Farah. Greg Rutherford. Jessica Ennis-Hill. Four years on from London 2012, those familiar names from Super Saturday remain British Athletics’ best hopes of gold in Rio. Farah insists he is in exceptional shape but will be wary of the challenge of the young Kenyan Geoffrey Kamworor, who beat him at the world half-marathon championships. Rutherford showed he had wintered well with a recent…

When Vice Sports launched online in June 2014, it played a different game than a lot of the shock-value content in which its mothership brand traffics. With the debut tomorrow of Vice World Of Sports on Viceland, that canny sensibility could make it the breakout show for the burgeoning but often blasé cable channel. As I say in my video review above, VWOS is a contender and worth getting a ticket for. Hosted…

Australian Shane Sutton joined British Cycling as a coach in 2002 British Cycling technical director Shane Sutton has been suspended amid an investigation into discrimination allegations. It follows a report in the Daily Mail that claimed Sutton made derogatory comments about Para-cyclists. Cyclist Jess Varnish previously said Sutton made sexist comments towards her and told her to “go and have a baby”. The 25-year-old said she spoke out against Australian…

Andre Ethier(Photo: Russell Gates/The Republic) Phoenix St. Mary’s has never won a state baseball championship in its long storied athletic history, but it has produced its share of players who not only got to the big leagues, but made an impact. But Jim Sanford, who has been a part of St. Mary’s athletics for the better part of 60 years, dating to his elementary school days to high school playing…

On one end of baseball evolution is the supremely talented Mike Trout, and on the other is a couple of pieces of paper from 1857 under lock and key at an auction house in Laguna Niguel. The handwritten “Laws of Base Ball” documents just sold at auction to an anonymous buyer for $3,263,246, prompting SCP Auctions Vice President Dan Imler to predict that baseball will never be…

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<!– The first Olympic Games in South America In 100 days’ time Rio will welcome 206 countries to four venues to compete for 4,924 medals across 42 sports… all in just 17 days of action. <!– The Rio Olympics will be held in four venues in Rio, Brazil: Deodoro, Barra, Copacabana and Maracana – the site of the Olympic Stadium Who’s going? A fleet of 21 jumbo jets would be…

Those claims were backed up by Victoria Pendleton in Tuesday’s Telegraph, the Olympic champion describing a “bullying, suffocating culture” at British Cycling, where she said sexism was an issue. Nicole Cooke, another former Olympic champion, also voiced her support for Varnish, as did Wendy Houvenaghel, the retired Northern Irish rider describing Sutton as a “narcissistic little bully”. British Cycling tried to stem the tide of negativity, with Sutton granting The…

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x Embed x Share Patrick is among the drivers confused about NASCAR’s fines. USA TODAY Sports Danica Patrick says team co-owner and fellow driver Tony Stewart should not have been fined for speaking out about a safety issue.(Photo: Amber Searls, USA TODAY Sports) Danica Patrick is among those confused about what drivers can and can’t say in the wake of Tony Stewart’s $35,000 fine. Stewart was fined last week after speaking out…

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How much money does Adam Scott need? (USATSI) You’ve likely never heard of Dawn Fraser unless you’re the wonkiest Olympics buff of all time. Fraser was an Australian swimmer who won four total gold medals at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games. Why am I telling you about her? Well, she went all in on fellow Australian Adam Scott recently on her Facebook page. And I mean all in….